Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Schwartz's vs Cody's 1 Year Old!

I'm not going to lie and sugar coat it. You had a tough year. I mean, let's look at how it started out. You woke me up in the middle of the night, and then didn't have the decency to wait until we got to the hospital before you arrived. From birth to now there has never been a dull moment. There has never been a time when we just lay lovingly together and look at one another. You are too full of, well, something to do that.

You had a rough start to the beginning of your first year sending us to the ER twice once with the beginnings of your battle with GERD and then with a small RSV scare (you didn't have it thank goodness!) You suffered miserably with GERD for longer than most babies and even now (as in at your one year check up) Dr. Catherine still thinks it's affecting you and suggests that we put you back on Prevacid. (We haven't decided yet.) But being in constant pain while eating for so long has made you quite the picky eater. Your favorite food is pretty much anything in a sandwich form (another reason Dr. Catherine thinks you may still have reflux).

You are busy and on the go. You love to explore and crawl around chasing after your sister. You love to climb! You will often get yourself into places that you can't get out of and will cry your alarm until someone comes and gets you down. It hasn't been anywhere dangerous yet thank goodness! Normally just the kiddie rocking chair or your sister's bed.

You love cars and trucks. Those are your favorite toys to play with. You even make the "vrooom" sound when you push them around. However, you also love to play with your sister's princess dolls. Now don't be alarmed when you read this later in life. You don't actually play with them per say. You really just eat them. They have rubber clothes and you chew on them like they are the most delicious thing in the world.

You absolutely LOVE to go shopping at any store any time, as long as it has a basket you can ride in. As soon as we put you in the cart you just light up and love to look around at all the bright colors and people. Right now you are a good cart companion, you don't reach for anything yet or try to knock things off shelves.

For most of your life you really haven't liked other people you really only wanted me and daddy to hold you. But now you are warming up to select others. Each day I've gone into the Y nursery this past week someone different has told me that you crawled up to them or let them pick you up. And at church this past Sunday you let Bro. Martin hold you for a long time and you even crawled over to Bro. Gray all on your own and pulled on him so he'd pick you up. It's nice to see you exploring your environment and feeling safe and comfortable enough to interact with other people.

As of now you still aren't free standing or walking. And you are still doing your Mowgli crawl if you want to get some place quickly. But you do pull up and cruise on furniture and depending on your mood you will attempt walking while holding hands with someone. You have a couple of indoor push toys and you've gotten more adventurous with them but your favorite push toy is your brand new Little Tykes Cozy Truck that we got you for your birthday. With it being bigger and a little heavier you can control the speed of it better than the little indoor push toys.

You have completely tranisitioned to sippy cups and whole milk. I'd say you drink like a champ but let's be honest you've never been a fan of the liquid diet so once again we are fighting to get you the minimum ounces of milk into you each day.

You love to go down slides. And it seems the bigger the better. I'll set you in front of one of the little slides at the gym and instead you'll turn around and crawl up the stairs to go down the big curly slide. You can even do the little booty scoot to get yourself started down the slide on your own. You have a huge smile the whole time and giggle.

As far as developmental milestones you seem to be doing just fine. We think you have 3 words, momma, dada, and no so that gets you a gold star and puts you right on track. However we did have to give Dr. Catherine 2 "no's" at your check up. You are not waving or pointing yet. Uh oh! I guess we need to work on that. Since you haven't been a very social baby I'm not surprised that you aren't waving or pointing. Both of those would mean that you need to interact with others and you really just don't do that. But maybe if we schedule some more play dates with the neighbor boy you'll learn some new tricks. After all, he's the one that taught you to wave.

It's been quite the first year bud! And we are looking forward to many more wonderful years with you.